Afrasianet - Riad Khalif - Contemporary Arabic poetry is witnessing a wave of return to memory, sheltering from the pain and emptiness of the moment. The present may not be suitable for arousing the poetry of the poet and the recipient at the same time.
We are at a stage in which nostalgia for the past prevails in its various social, creative and cultural manifestations, which allowed the emergence of the expressions of the beautiful time and the like.
This was reflected in the poetic scene, as many poems appeared that roamed the past and its spaces, and it is not strange for the Arab poet to invoke the beautiful past that became a tattoo in the heart, as the Arab poets stood a lot at the ruins of their beloved ones, and here are the poets of the era, free from the tattoo of the beloved, stand at the ruins of the self, friends, comrades and distant years, recalling the memory of the beginning, the memory of the daily and political struggle...
In this context, i.e., the poetry of memory, comes the poems of the collection "Only They Cross the Bridge" by the Tunisian poet Bashir Obeid, published by Kanaya Publications, a collection that seems to bear the tattoo of memory, wishes and breaks, in which the self appears The poet is worried and bears many pains.
Memory Tools:
Perhaps memory is the first entry into this collection, with which the reader stumbles in the paths and folds of this work, clear verbal tools and poetic images that the poet recalls and reformulates poetically.
At the level of descriptive verbal tools that help to classify speech, various words with a referential character on the past and poetic retrieval are frequent, the most important of which is the word memory, which is so widespread in the collection that it is hardly absent from a poem, and it is always the focus of attention.
Perhaps this observation looms from the threshold of the dedication, as he declares the word, referring to his late brother, "His voice is still beating in memory." There are many appearances of the word memory here and there, carrying new formulations similar to what we record in the first poem ("Many wines of the East on the table of remembrance/ For the extent of memory and lights/
Here is my ink, my anger and my memory / On the wings is the memory of the fiyafi / They have no memory and grandchildren in the city." The second poem is mentioned with a word in its title "Houses of Memory"... In this way, the word "memory" comes to record its presence in the various subsequent poems.
Not only does the poet announce this trend at this level, but the word bears other signs, and this word is supported by another word with a structure suggestive of the past tense, which is before the intensely frequent ones, and often appeared in the readings of these texts or in the middle of them (before it rains/ before the wind blows/ before the boys of the south come/ before the boy goes to the orchards...) In addition to the word "memory", the verb is also a reference to the previous tense: "There was a swarm of pigeons / the south, and the homeless man was renovating houses that had collapsed."
These linguistic manifestations reveal the reliance of the poetic imagination in this collection on images of the past, which is evident in many poetic images, as there is a return to exciting and distinctive moments and the employment of them.
These are the moments of beginning and dreaming. Perhaps the images of memory here do not seem to express only events, faces, and spaces, but are the memory of dreams and wishes that collided with the present and the search for them became a painful poetic question.
"Where are the cities that promised us nostalgia and snow of distances?
Why did the refractive clouds tear it apart?
And the canary birds died on its windows?
Memory is needed
The poetic moment seems to be a moment of collision between yesterday and today, a moment of complaint at times and a moment of protest at other times.
Bashir Obeid's poetic memory, which recalls the past and dreams, and records the breaks and disappointment of the moment, seems to be a triumph of the oppressed, disappointed and lost marginal in the city.
Perhaps this is what Hikmat Al-Hajj said in his introduction to the work: "In this poem, memory is not called upon to restore a complete past, but to resist the present when it tries to impose its only narrative, for the poem reconnects what has been left behind."
Perhaps the theme of departure is another theme that looms over the reader, as the scene of departure frequents in the main title, where the crossing and in Metn where the poems recall the images of the nomads and the homeless that are repeated in different readings (in the last tremor of the night, the wagons pass by the tents/ passing over a country that has not been visited by caravans/ before sunset comes, strangers come, astonished, and you see them dreaming of the horizon and the distant hills).
Thus the tale of departure seems to be a poetic rhythm echoed by the poems, the departure of the dreamy oppressed marginal, its struggles, its convoys, its paths and its alienation. Perhaps the contemplative of this collection will notice this triumph for the marginal, for theshepherds, for the homeless and for the lost:
« Be close to the shepherds' notebooks.
And the shouts of the street vendors
And the screams of street children..."
These poems turn into frequent cries about the state of the country:
(How did the scene become close to the clouds and the country became a mirage?/ You are now outside the walls and no one asks you about the wounds of the country that traveled to the kingdom of absence.)
In conclusion, it can be said that this collection of poetry is a collection with many keys to its meanings and can be accessed by the researcher from different doors, memory, departure, and oppressive cities.
The country and other countries, which is a new experience added to the experience of Bashir Obeid, who has been enriching the Arab cultural scene through poetry and prose, breaking through the walls of isolation...
Riad Khalif - Tunisian writer
